Post Christmas Syndrome

Its always the same case whereby the moment you have a long break, you find it increasingly difficult to get back in gear. Work in every sense.

Christmas has been decent to me and this year the star of the show is..... My adorable 15 month nephew adriel!

Every week I see him and every week his dad comes up with a new trick for him. Just for this festive season he is trained to shout "HEY!" at the end of the jingle bells.

I have to say that he is quite amazing considering how he can fall, hit his head, start crying and still perform acts like "how does a bird fly" , "OMG" and even "Happy face" then back to crying again.

In the words of my uncle Bernard, he's on auto pilot.

kkk Enough reminiscent'ing back to work!

JJ

Merry Christmas!

This year has been great.

Sure you can see it as a year full of shit and drama. The rise and fall of MBH, the inner struggles as an artist, the decision to leave my previous company, the many hits and near misses even all the minor scares and the uncertainties of half ton and my friends.

But amidst all that, I made the resolution to venture out, found new best friends in Nicholas and Kader and a whole lot of buddies such as 4-3, Half ton, AE, Big3, Swim buds, ah wee, Ben Chee, SB gang and even my new found friends in reservists.

I got to enjoy the good parts of life.

Celebrated my birthday with love in Batam

Photo/food and mountain scaling journeys in the last historic train ride to Kluang

Worked with a great team in Aeturnus

Dinners and birthdays with the SB gang

Breakfasts by the park with The 4-3 gang

Basketball at NUS and the various others

Attended the weddings of many great friends

Insanity Exercises with Insane in the membrane

Watched my Nephew grow from a baby to a 15 month old circus act

Even ICT with the guys.

So even with all the uncertainty of the future.

Even with all the shit that gets spit on your face.

Even with all the quarrels and debates,

I look back and think. Guys and girls. I really loved this year and am thankful for all of you! May we continue in this great fellowship and move on to a new year. I am grateful for my life and if I had it my way, I wouldn't change a thing. Well maybe just a few things.. haha

JJ

Chestnuts Singapore!

Here's something I did in collaboration with my buddy Shaun MD/CD T25 just last month.

In celebration of Chestnut's 15th year of local drama (Singapore) Spoofing!

Well we referenced and duplicated alot of "Classic" tv openings and I must say... campy cheese re-run duplicates are my sorta thing! haha.

Everyone's heard about the winning formula in making films. Be it the Hero's Journey or the various archetypes. Give the audience what they want, and its sure to be a hit! Singapore simply takes that formula to another level! The actresses change but the plot rarely does and I guess Chestnuts is one of the first groups to recognise that! lol...

There's 2 parts to this so follow the instructions and enjoy =)



JJ

post modern art - grr

At some point in art's history, we "intellectuals" have gone from sane to insane to impressions to expressions. And after thousands of years of evolution, we eventually ran out of defining terms and moments and decided to name every other work of art "Post Modern"

The great part is that the term post modern has officially simplified all forms of art (after modern/pop) into a generic term and has technically brought the ability to create art away from the once exclusive "Intellectuals" and into the masses.

The sad part is, that this over simplification has led to a new breed of untrained un-refined artists who began to dilute our fine trade with random imagery guised under the all encompassing world of personal expression.

To me, Art should follow 3 simple rules.

1. It has to be beautiful (though argued that it is in the eyes of the beholder)

2. It has to contain thought (even if it is a random one or emotion)

3. It has to be practiced and trained (Picasso did thousands of tests before he
managed to come up with cubism. And famous drip painter Jackson Pollock did
hundreds of massive drip paintings before we saw his raging emotions pour onto his
canvas.)

The bottom line is. I really cannot stand fake artists who create pieces of junk without proper intentions with the attempt to sell. I once met an artist who literally held a gallery of "art work" and was literally rushing crappy kiddy magazine collages the night before the event and was like "oh! I've been doing this forever blah blah.."

Oh well... who am I to judge. If someone one wants to sell old scrap paper for $700 and another is willing to pay for this, then I guess that piece of scrap is worth &$700 after all!

Here's someone whom I think deserves some praise, though I think he's nothing short of obsessed.



You don't see anyone making 3.2 million ink dots everyday do you!

jj

A little Back Dated

Been down for reservist for the past few days so i'm kinda out of action. Haven't woken at 5-6am daily since well... my last time in the force haha. But as a free lancer that also means no time for work...

Which also means.. no Income.

But yet when everyone comes to me asking if I can do a job for them I say.. sure!

Which normally means giving up all the excess free time that you can be spending with your loved ones.

Perhaps I need to learn to say no more often... yet more often than not those that come to me sound like they really need the help (not that i'm a last resort! *narrows eyes/pouts lips).

Well I've learnt that kindness has to be given appropriately the hard way. Pleasing everyone results in displeasing everyone and a potential drastic measure.

Gerard sent me this message a couple of days ago (along with some advice) as well and I think it's fairly appropriate

Don't wanna mess with this guy!

JJ

The way you are

Here's something interesting that I stumbled across on youtube..

Bruno Mars Just the way you are (Hokkien cover)

I swear the only reason why this is not yet having millions of hits is cuz there aren't enough hokkien nang on the net lol.

Many people have been coming up to me lately and pouring out their troubles. Well to you folks out there, perhaps the first step in loving anything/one is to accept yourself and say "YES everyone else sucks!" haha. Kidding... But on a side note to everything (well.. most...) there are always two sides.

My advice is, when it comes to a point whereby you feel that you've loved that thing or person to the best of your abilities but still don't feel the necessary reciprocation (and wanna give up); it is not that you are lacking true love.

True love requires nurturing and communication (aka 2 way)

You are NOT a shallow person if you demand some respect/reward.

It is thus perhaps it is the other party/hobby/interest is just not deserving enough to be a part of this 2-way function.

If you have indeed done your best, you are already great just the way you are and at least you've tried. So don't go begging for whats not attainable or you will never see the greater skies.

Keep loving the people around you and the things that you do. Most importantly keep loving yourself as well.

jj

Death at Standard Charter Marathon Singapore

Photo Taken from http://www.whatsondalian.com/news-2256-malcolm-sng-wei-ren-22-dies-in-fall-at-half-of-standard-chartered-marathon-singapore.html

Recently there has been a lot of hype about a dude named Malcolm Sng Wei Ren.

"SMU undergraduate Malcolm Sng was 22 years old, and had collapsed after finishing the 21km race at the Padang at about 8:30am.

Sng had finished the run in 1 hour, 53 minutes and 20 seconds, according to the tracking system on the marathon's website." - Yahoo news.

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/runner-dies-after-stanchart-half-marathon.html

Young chap just a few years younger than me (now you know my age) Apparently he was a Golden bayonet in the army (top soldier among st sergeants.)

I agree with the fact that it is a tragedy and all but honestly speaking, deep down, I wonder if it was a case of pure freak accident such as a sudden cardiac arrest?

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/scda/

http://www.livescience.com/3780-odds-dying.html

Or was it a case of an overly zealous "mind over body" attempt.

Back in the army, many of my company's fittest people all ended up with some form of heat stroke or severe injury. Back then, I was perhaps within the top 3 in fitness but never really got to the top. Neither did I get any major injury...

I always knew I could push that much harder but at the same time realised that my body was on the verge of collapsing and I was already far ahead of everyone else.

So that brings me back to the question of "Is it worth it?"

Some may say that's the mentality of a weakling. You settle for the top few but never had the balls to go for the top. Well I disagree. I believe that aiming for the top is a good thing. But knowing your own limit is another. We should always strive to be the best that we can be, master it, then move even higher. Understanding your own body and own mentality comes with alot of practice and humility.

Well regardless of reason, any innocent death is a sad thing indeed and I do offer my condolences for Malcolm's family and I will keep these "yuan wang" people's deaths in my prayers. Events such as these are designed to make you feel good about yourself and never meant for any mis-haps. Knowing the Singapore government... for all you know... the next thing they'll do is have a health screening before each marathon or it would be ILLEGAL! grinz

JJ

2nd week of Advent "PEACE"

Ahh... Avent means its coming up to CHRISTMAS!...

Happiness...

So this week's Gospel and message is about Peace.

Funny how I was planning it to be decembers motto/resolution.

"Peace be with you and in my heart"

Been Kinda angst-y lately and just as I made that resolution, the priest was talking about it!

God really does work in wonderful ways.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A lady was sitting in an airport crying "all i want is to go home! all I want is to go home!"

A priest walks by and says how can I help you

She keeps crying and wailing. "all i want is to go home! all I want is to go home! I've been stuck here for 3 days and that's my flight on call but I've lost my ticket."

Looking at her shattered spirit and tattered clothes, the priest tried to console her saying "Please go wash up, I will try my very best to get you on the next flight home"

The moment she got up she scream! "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

There's my ticket! She's been sitting on it for the past 3 days!

We all want to change and want to do things better.

But sometimes all we need to do is get off our butts to get things going!

JJ

Naruto Shippuden Fanvid

The things you can find on youtube these days.

http://www.facebook.com/ThousandPoundsActionCompany?sk=events

I have to say as a videographer/Animator/Vis eff guy...

This is actually pretty damn good! ahahah。

Well it does get slow and draggy at times, but hey! that's what a build up is for.

Naruto Shippuden spin off by Thousandpounds Action Company, "salute!"

JJ

fascinating meals

Ok. So im supposed to be on a mad workout regime. And occasional (six pack shortcuts - check out his youtube workouts, amazing)

But yes i bought myself a coconut float@ xingwang northpoint (cuz i kinda love coconut ice cream) and it had the most unusual of surprises.

Initially i thought it was floating and was trying to push it down for a deep sip, but it hit a hard surface so i thought "whaaaaat are u serious? Dont give me a large cup just to have a super thick base and rip me off!"

So i pulled out the straw and found the longest straw ive ever seen in a regular food joint!

Well you may think that it sounds pretty pointless. But truth be told it was a really comfortable drinking experience, reaching the bottom of the deep cup without having to really bend down into it.

Now all they need to do is fix the thickness of it so u can actually suck up the bits of coconut flesh as well...

JJ

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Insanity work outs!

Been going totally insane lately... The aim is to go from that...


To that...

Yeah Shaun T goodness haha. Far fetched as it may be, its always good to shoot for the moon and reach the clouds :)

So far we have completed 4 out of 14 workouts and yesterday we even finished it with sets of bicep curls,fly's, shoulder presses and round house lifts.

Hell we even formed a face book group to share diet plans and workout regimes!

http://www.facebook.com/groups/248981121830217/

Time to dig deeper!
JJ